| Refugees take time by a reservoir outside of the Mae La displaced persons camp in Thailand. |
Using mostly materials naturally available in the valley of their displacement camp, the refugees have built a new city for themselves and their families. |
Displacement camps are generally established very close to the Myanmar-Thailand border in valleys otherwise uninhabited due to steep slopes and harsh landscapes. Mae La Camp, pictured here, is home to 40,000 Myanmar refugees. |
Drawing community well water in Mae La Camp. Ranks of bamboo and thatch homes face dirt pedestrian avenues. Neighborhoods are bisected by channelized streams. |
This typical camp school happens to be sponsored by a Japanese NGO. Ethnic minority families living in Myanmar often send their young children trekking over the border to camps like this to receive education not available in the jungle. |
Refugees living in camps have difficulty earning money, so the majority of Myanmar refugees choose to be illegal migrant workers. This Karen minority couple is planting bean seeds in the first week of June, the beginning of rainy season. |
Migrant workers shelling garlic for market. An enterprising ethnic minority family dries and processes garlic, hiring more families when the work load is heavy. |
In a remote village in northern Thailand, a Karen women dices young bamboo in her kitchen to cook for pig feed. Traditionally, the Karen society has existed on both sides of the Myanmar-Thailand border. In this area, many Karen are resettling from Myanmar to escape prosecution from the military junta. |
Two women tending fields in Mae Sariang, a border town in northern Thailand near a large displacement camp. |
In Mywaddi, Myanmar, a toy gun was left behind on a temple alter inscribed with the Burmese alphabet. |
Myanmar's saffron monks building a temple in Mywaddi. In September 2007, the monk's Saffron Revolution protested for human rights in Rangoon resulting in vicious government backlash. In June, 2008 monasteries were still being sacked by the junta in retaliation. Monks directly connected to organizing the Saffron Revolution have fled to Thailand. |
Myanmar women cooking a special meal for the monks during the Songkran Festival in Thailand. A Buddhist monk's main meal is lunch; after noon they are forbidden from consuming solid foods. Devout Myanmar Buddhists fleeing their country have established Burmese monasteries in Thailand. |
In Mywaddi, Myanmar, a young coffee shop patron escapes midday heat. Breakfast and two cups of coffee here cost about half a US dollar, for a tourist. |
Evening market in Mywaddi, Myanmar. The currency of the Union of Myanmar is Kyat, approximately 1000 to $1. There are no ATM's in Myanmar so travelers are recommended to bring creaseless, unstamped $100 US bills for conversion. |
Inside Myanmar, this monetary collected water bottles for Cyclone Nagris relief. After the disaster struck the Irrawaddy Delta, families of Rangoon government officials received most of the official aid, leaving ethnic minorities and other communities to fend for themselves. |
Illegal migrant workers from Mywaddi take the evening boat across the Moei River into Mae Sot, Thailand. On the far shore only a hundred meters across the river, Myanmar can be reached on foot from Thailand in dry season. |
Boatloads of smuggled consumer products leak into Myanmar's closed economy. Soft drinks, soap, rice, and guns go into Myanmar. Teak, furniture, jade, and opium cross into Thailand. |
Loading goods into a boat in a channel of the Moei River to be smuggled into Myanmar. For two kilometers along the river, more men with boats are doing the same. |
A man bathes in the polluted Moei River on a sunken boat. Behind him in Myanmar, a trash dump is burning. For lack of any better options, conscientious Myanmar citizens drag their waste out of the city to be burned. |
Directly beneath the Myanmar-Thailand Friendship Bridge and in clear view of both the Myanmar and Thai military border guards, illegal migrants ferry home via inner-tube after laboring in Thailand. The bridge is passport controlled. It is unlikely that these workers have ever had passports. This behavior is tolerated because Thailand needs cheap labor. |
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